On Monday, the giant claw of a large piece of machinery tore away at one of the walls of Parker Center, the former headquarters of the Los Angeles Police Department. Vacant since 2013, [Parker Center Tower] will be cleared out and a 27-story high-rise will take its place, holding offices for city employees and services that are now spread across multiple buildings.
— LA Curbed

Los Angeles has an unfortunate history of erasing its not too-distant past, and it continues to show no mercy to the era of hard-edged modernism. Parker Center Tower, one such building the Downtown Los Angeles, is the most recent to suffer from the city's need to tear itself down and reimagine its... View full entry

The city will eventually demolish the building to put a 27-story office tower on the site, [costing over] $700 million. Last month, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation and the Coalition to Preserve LA teamed up to file a petition...that could have forced the city to halt demolition while the case was being decided...But Garcetti has said the building is contaminated with asbestos and unsound seismically. It is also tarnished by its association with dark LAPD history.
— Curbed LA

The Parker Center, depending on who you ask, is either a midcentury icon, or a powerful symbol of Los Angeles' racist past. Located downtown, the building was home to the LAPD up until 2009 when they relocated due to expensive retrofits needed on the site. Designed by Welton Becket—the architect... View full entry